Luke 16
16
The Parable of the Unrighteous Manager
1 Now He was also saying to the disciples, “There was a certain wealthy man who had a manager. And charges were brought to him that this manager was wasting his possessions. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear concerning you? Provide the account of your stewardship, because you are no longer able to manage.’ 3 And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, because my master is taking away the management from me? I do not have the strength to dig; I am ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the management, they will receive me into their homes.’ 5 And he called each one of his master’s debtors, and began to say to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 And he said, ‘A hundred measures of olive oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and when you sit down, quickly write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and write eighty.’ 8 And the master commended the unrighteous manager, because he acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd than the sons of light in matters pertaining to their own generation. 9 And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it exhausts, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.
10 “The one who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much; and the one who is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much. 11 If then in unrighteous wealth, you have not been faithful, who will entrust to you the true wealth? * 12 And if you have not been faithful in what belongs to another, who will give you that which is yours? 13 No servant can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and the other he will love, or he will be devoted to one and the other he will despise. You cannot serve God and money.”
Pharisaic Love of Money and Hypocrisy
14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were hearing all these things, and they were deriding Him. 15 And He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
The Law and the Kingdom of God
Matt. 11:12-13
16 “The Law and the prophets were until John; from that time, the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.
18 “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and the one who marries a woman who has been divorced from her husband commits adultery.
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “Now there was a certain rich man, and he regularly dressed in purple and fine linen, revelling every day in a luxurious manner. 20 And a certain poor man, Lazarus by name, who was afflicted with sores, was laid at his gate, 21 and was longing to be fed with what fell * from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came, and were licking his sores.
22 “Now it occurred that the poor man died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried. 23 And while in torment in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham from a long distance, and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am being tormented in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, recall that you received your good things during your lifetime, and Lazarus equally received bad things. And now he is consoled here, but you are being tormented. 26 And besides all these things, a great impassable gulf has been fixed between us and you, so that those who want to cross over from here to you are not able, nor can they pass over from there to us.’ 27 So he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house, 28 (for I have five brothers), in order that he may warn them, so that they may not also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; however, if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’ ”
Notes
11 The word wealth is not found in the Greek text but is contextually inferred and thus included in this translation for the sake of clarity
21 Some ancient manuscripts read with the crumbs which fell… . This harmonises the text with a parallel construction in Matt. 15:27
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Copyright © 2026 Michael Adeyemi Adegbola. This Scripture text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
